Package: xterm
Version: 4.3.0.dfsg.1-5
Severity: normal
Later Linux 2.6 kernels do not recycle pseudo TTYs, so ptys like
/dev/pts/1234 are not uncommon.
xterm does not seem to handle this well at all. In particular, it
relies on the 4-digit ut_id field in utmp, which would look like
"p123" in the above example. If I open up three xterms on ptys which
all have a ut_id of "p123", they overwrite each other in utmp,
so that only one shows up.
In wtmp, they all show as opening, but on close, they all act as if
they closed the last record, not their own.
I would assume this is due to code like this (in Exit() in main.c):
utmp.ut_type = DEAD_PROCESS;
/* position to entry in utmp file */
/* Test return value: beware of entries left behind: PSz 9 Mar 00 */
if (!(utret = getutid(&utmp))) {
(void) setutent();
utmp.ut_type = USER_PROCESS;
if (!(utret = getutid(&utmp))) {
(void) setutent();
}
}
... which uses getutid() to find the proper entry in utmp, without
matching the full and proper ut_line to make sure that it was the
correct entry.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.6
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8
Versions of packages xterm depends on:
ii libc6 2.3.2.ds1-12 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii libexpat1 1.95.6-8 XML parsing C library - runtime li
ii libfontconfig1 2.2.2-2 generic font configuration library
ii libfreetype6 2.1.7-2 FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii libice6 4.3.0.dfsg.1-1 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii libncurses5 5.4-3 Shared libraries for terminal hand
ii libsm6 4.3.0.dfsg.1-1 X Window System Session Management
ii libxaw7 4.3.0.dfsg.1-1 X Athena widget set library
ii libxext6 4.3.0.dfsg.1-1 X Window System miscellaneous exte
ii libxft2 2.1.2-6 FreeType-based font drawing librar
ii libxmu6 4.3.0.dfsg.1-1 X Window System miscellaneous util
ii libxpm4 4.3.0.dfsg.1-1 X pixmap library
ii libxrender1 0.8.3-7 X Rendering Extension client libra
ii libxt6 4.3.0.dfsg.1-1 X Toolkit Intrinsics
ii xlibs 4.3.0.dfsg.1-1 X Window System client libraries m
ii xlibs-data 4.3.0.dfsg.1-1 X Window System client data
-- no debconf information
